Technology is changing all the time. We know this. The pace of technology change is moving faster than at any time in recent memory, however, spurred by the shift from IT as an enabling tool to that of a revenue engine and competitive differentiator.

You don’t have to live in Silicon Valley or watch the stock market to understand that IT is driving business today. This is quickening the pace of IT evolution.

The role of IT is shifting from operations to strategic revenue generation. IT operational spending is down 25 percent over the past two years at the same time as overall IT budgets are up roughly 20 percent in the past year and 74 percent overall during the past decade, according to data from the Society of Information Management.

Innovation and a larger role in revenue generation seem to account for much of the change.

“Interestingly, we’ve never seen much of a correlation between IT spending and profitability until the last few years,” says Kappelman. “CIOs are spending a great deal more time with their C-suite peers, a sign that they are more business- and strategy-focused that ever before.”

This trend could partially explain why a quarter of all CIOs now come from non-IT backgrounds, according to Kappelman, up nearly 180 percent over the past two years.

Trend #2: Using Artificial Intelligence for Security

Artificial intelligence is being tested or adopted at most enterprises right now, and this should come as no surprise.

“Virtually every industry today—retail, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, etc.—is currently benefiting from the cognitive power of AI,” notes Philip Guido, Global Technology Services general manager of infrastructure services for IBM.

One AI use case of particular interest is using it for enhanced security; AI is able to uncover security holes and spot suspicious systems activity far more easily and comprehensively than humans. During this year’s Oracle World in San Francisco, for instance, the role of AI for protecting enterprise systems was a particular focus.

Using AI for security is more than just a defensive move in the face of heightened security concerns, however.

“Organizations are treating enterprise security as more than just a necessity to adhere to regulatory and compliance requirements,” notes Guido. “Integrating AI into these systems can be a competitive advantage.”

Trend #3: Adjusting for Partnerships at Scale

In the ERP space, there’s talk of connecting the IT systems of whole industries in a network of networks through the blockchain. More immediately, however, enterprises are recognizing that business advantage comes from deeper, more connected partnerships with suppliers, distributors and customers.

This requires frictionless partnerships, so a third enterprise IT trend is adjusting infrastructure and processes for this new way of doing business.

“While organizations increasingly look to partnerships for growth, they must also retool their internal systems to support these alliances at scale,” says Michael Biltz, managing director of technology vision for Accenture Labs.

This change requires not just new connectivity, but also new ways of thinking about enterprise IT.

Trend #4: Creating More Value from Data

The four interconnected IT trends of big data, AI, the cloud and the Internet of Things are leading to a greater emphasis on pulling value from data. Managing all this data is still an ongoing challenge for enterprise IT, but there’s a shift toward intelligently harnessing the data for competitive advantage. If security is one key use for AI right now, the other big use is making business smarter with it by putting all that data to good use.

“With data as the world’s new natural resource, the real challenge is not just coping with volume, it’s mining value and insights from that data so businesses be more efficient,” says Guido.

There’s currently an arms race going on to see which businesses can get smarter faster through better data use. The spoils is survival itself as firms mired in older processes begin getting overtaken by those that put data to use in sophisticated ways.

Trend #5: Verifying Data Integrity

Establishing the difference between legitimate and fake news isn’t the only battle right now around data integrity. Businesses also are working on ensuring that the data used for competitive advantage is actually accurate; the best AI use and strategy still fails if the data fed into the system is not correct.

There’s currently renewed interest in IT departments around cleaning and normalizing data, as well as verifying its provenance before it goes into analytics engines.

“More data-reliant than ever, businesses must work to ensure that their data is in fact reliable, and mitigate the threat of inaccurate data that can lead to incorrect insights and decisions,” says Biltz.

Enterprise IT is changing fast—and arguably getting more interesting as it does.